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"Living As If..."
1 Corinthians 7:29-31

Over ten years ago, in January of 1994, there was a major disaster on the west coast in the Los Angeles area. An earthquake, on a fault-line nobody knew about, devastated the area. Twenty thousand people were left homeless.

Gas lines and water lines were broken, interstate highways collapsed, dozens were killed, and hospitals were flooded with thousands of injured.

But after it happened, and folks had some time to think about it, some questions began to arise; and many began, "What if...."

What if the earthquake had NOT taken place on the Monday of the observance of Martin Luther King's Birthday, a holiday, but rather had taken place on a normal WORKING DAY?

What if the earthquake had NOT taken place at 4:30 in the morning, but a few hours later when those collapsed interstates would have been filled with traffic, when collapsed office buildings would have been filled with workers, when schools would have been filled with children?

What if the epicenter of the quake had NOT been in the northern suburbs of Los Angeles but further south in the more densely-populated heart of Los Angeles?

What if?

Well, we ask questions like this not only of earthquakes, but of our own lives. The answer to all these "what if" questions regarding the earthquake is that the loss of life and property would have been far greater.

And although I don't recall any radio or television newscasters saying it, in spite of all the suffering, MANY in Southern California should have been counting their blessings. It COULD have been much worse.

And when we get some winter moisture, even though driving on wet or icy roads and highways can be a bit difficult, it CAN be worse. Much worse. We could be under two or three feet of snow.

What if.

But when we ask these "What if?" questions, we're essentially looking backward. We're second-guessing. So let's put a different spin on it. Let's look at the present...and the future.

When Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians, he was convinced that the second coming of Jesus was right around the corner, and in the twenty-ninth verse of the seventh chapter he tells them, "I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short."

Now, it's tempting to write Paul off. I mean, it's almost two thousand years later, and we're still waiting. So why should we pay attention to him?

I know I have difficulty paying attention to television evangelists who today are as certain as Paul that the second coming is right around the corner.

But what IF they're right? What IF Paul was right? What kinds of demands does it place on us, if we were to live AS IF he was right? And indeed, we don't KNOW whether the second coming is imminent. If COULD be!

So let's look closely at what Paul has to say to the Corinthians. And let's ask some hard questions about what it means to live AS IF he were correct in the appointed time growing short.

"From now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none."

He didn't say anything about husbands, but feel free to insert them here if that's appropriate. Of course, in bad marriages, some folks DO live as though they have no spouses. And some folks might think this is an escape hatch.

But that is NOT what Paul is talking about.

What Paul is talking about is really no more radical that what Jesus had to say in the thirty-eighth verse of the tenth chapter of the gospel according to Matthew:

"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."

And I suppose he could have gone on to say, "Whoever loves husband or wife more than me is not worthy of me." And isn't Jesus saying that in order to follow him we must live AS IF we had no family? Because indeed, our SPIRITUAL lives have nothing to do with our EARTHLY connections.

I remember that when I was in the seventh or eighth grade my father suggested, "Why don't you become a doctor? You seem bright enough, and I'll pay your way through medical school." And I said, "No, I want to be a teacher." (I wanted to be like Dad.)

And he replied, "Why do you want to be a TEACHER? You can't make any money TEACHING!" Well, preachers don't get rich real fast, either. And I can just imagine myself saying, "God, I don't think I want to do this because my Dad told me...."

No, it doesn't work that way. In our spiritual lives we have to live AS IF we have no family.

And Paul continues, "and those who mourn as though they were not mourning."

Now, is Paul being cruel and insensitive? No, he's just putting mourning where it belongs, OUTSIDE the spiritual world.

Again, in the gospel according to Matthew, the twenty-first and twenty-second verses of the eighth chapter, "Another of Jesus' disciples said to him, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus said to him, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."

Now, there are a number of ways of interpreting this passage. But one thing I hear is the disciple saying, "Lord, I need to mourn the loss of my father." And that is a perfectly normal human reaction to our loss. I think it would be ABNORMAL for the disciple to feel otherwise. But Jesus SEPARATES the spiritual journey from the earthly journey. And to let the "dead bury their own dead" is to move from the earthly to the spiritual.

And what would it be like to live AS IF there were no need for mourning? Wouldn't it be to live AS IF there were nothing to lose?

There was a popular song back in the fifties, sung by Patience and Prudence, with the line, "Got along without ya before I met ya, gonna get along without ya now." For normal humans, easier said than done. We grow attached to one another.

And through death and divorce we experience the pain of loss. But it is the loss of an EARTHLY attachment. It is NOT our spiritual life. We become accustomed to our earthly relationships, dependent upon them, and deeply saddened by their loss.

But on the flip side of mourning, Paul adds, "and those who rejoice, as though they were not rejoicing."

So Paul doesn't want us to have a GOOD time either. But stop and think about it. How SHORT-LIVED are our joys? How frequently are they here today and gone tomorrow?

A pastor should never get a big head whenever a parishioner compliments his preaching, because there's probably another one who thinks it is lousy. And even if everybody seems to think we're wonderful one Sunday, the next Sunday may be awful.

So the problem with our joy--and I still like pats on the back--is that it is temporary. It is not eternal. It is of this earth; it is not spiritual.

However, I think it was Wayne Dyer who argued that to be "creatively alive" we need to learn to enjoy the rain along with the sunshine, the mud puddles along with the dry ground; we need to find JOY in all aspects of our lives.

But if we can DO that, what we do is transcend earthly limitations, and we begin to discover the spiritual in the earthly.

I don't believe that God wants our lives to be DEVOID of joy; but I do think that God would have us understand that there is a difference between EARTHLY joy and spiritual HEAVENLY joy.

I feel sorry for athletes for whom winning is everything. Because for them, joy is so limited. And losing is so painful. It is only for those who truly love the GAME, the competition, the race, whatever, that joy can become a spiritual experience. It is no longer LIMITED to earthly concerns.

Well, enough about feeling bad and feeling good. Paul would also have "those who buy be as though they had no possessions."

Now, Paul isn't saying, "Don't buy anything." I mean, let's be realistic. And I also don't think that he's telling us we should have NO possessions. But he IS addressing our ATTITUDE toward what we possess.

Remember the story Jesus told in the twelfth chapter of the gospel according to Luke about the rich fool? Beginning with the seventeenth verse, "And he thought to himself, What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?"

“Then he said, "I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And will say to my soul, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, "You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, WHOSE will they be?"

In the move, "The Jerk," in which Steve Martin plays the title role, he loses a fortune. And his wife, played by Bernadette Peters, responds by whining, "I don't care about the money; I just don't want to lose all the STUFF!"

We live in a world filled with stuff; and we get so attached to all that stuff. I liked my father's attitude. He and Mom had been living in the same house for about twenty-five years. And through fifty-seven years of marriage, they had acquired a lot of "stuff."

Occasionally, when I would visit, I would run across something, usually in the basement, and I would ask, "By the way, could I have such-and-such?" And Dad would reply, "Take it. You can have anything you want. Help yourself." And he really MEANT it. Stuff is stuff. And I think the only thing in that house that he was attached to was my mother.

And then Paul says, "Let those who deal with the world be as though they had no dealings with it."

Well, we MUST deal with the world. So how do we behave AS IF we HAD no dealings with it?" I mean, we're talking radical spirituality.

So let's take another look at that rich fool with barns full of stuff. What is he preparing himself for? To enjoy all his stuff. And what is he NOT preparing himself for? His death. And I suspect that the only way we can learn to live as if we have no dealings with the world is to reverse the situation of the rich fool and ask, "How would I prepare for my death?"

Now, I don't mean to be morbid. But when we come to understand that we aren't going to be taking all our stuff with us, that our earthly dealings will no longer matter, THEN we will understand the separation of our earthly life from our spiritual life.

And Paul has good reason for all these injunctions:

"For the present form of this world is passing away."

But I don't think we need to concern ourselves with whether the second coming is just around the corner or not. What we DO need to concern ourselves with is the presence of Jesus Christ is our lives RIGHT NOW. Can we live AS IF he IS here?

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